medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (12. August) is the feast day of:
1) Anicetus and Photius (d. 303, supposedly). A. and his nephew P. (also Photinus) are martyrs of Nicomedia in Bithynia, today's İzmit in Turkey. They have a legendary Passio with versions in Greek and in Latin (BHG 1542, BHL 481).
According to this account, A. was a senior military officer who in Diocletian's presence openly opposed his persecution of Christians. He was sentenced, ineffectively, to a death by wild beasts in the circus: after all the animals had first withdrawn from his presence a lion licked his face to cleanse it of sweat. Immediately thereafter an earthquake stuck the city, casting down idols and killing many pagans. Oblivious to the import of these prodigies, Diocletian continued to subject A. to torment. P. protested to Diocletian, who in turn had both of them and many other Christians burned alive. The bodies of the dead saints were unmarked by the flames and were given Christian burial. A few years later an oratory was erected in their honor on the promontory of Daphnusa (Calpe; modern Kirpe) on the Black Sea. Thus far the Passio.
A. and P. have an Office with a canon by the ninth-century St. Joseph the Hymnographer. In the seemingly also ninth-century Guidi Bios of St. Constantine the Great (BHG 364) Diocletian is said to have died horribly after he had vented his wrath upon them. A. and P. are invoked in the Byzantine Rite both in the ceremony of Extreme Unction and and in the formula for the blessing of water. In Greek menaea their Passio is accompanied by a distich punning on the names of the two saints (A.'s signifies Unconquered, P.'s signifies Illuminated):
Πῦρ Ἀνίκητον συνφλέγει τῷ Φωτίῳ,
Οὓς φωτὸς οἶκος ὡς ἀνικήτους φέρει.
"Fire consumes Anicetus together with Photius;
The house of light holds them unconquered."
A. and P. as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (ca. 1313-ca. 1320) of the King's Church (dedicated to Sts. Joachim and Anne) in the Studenica monastery near Kraljevo (Raška dist.) in southern Serbia:
A.:
http://tinyurl.com/2g4sm4e
P.:
http://tinyurl.com/2dzzhau
A. and P. as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) of the narthex in the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
A.:
http://tinyurl.com/24nam6l
P.:
http://tinyurl.com/2dam69q
A. (at lower left; in the caption, misidentified as P.) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) of the prothesis in the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/23hlvjt
Detail (A.):
http://tinyurl.com/29ln5ka
2) Euplus (d. 304). E. (in Latin also Euplius, in Greek also Eupolos, in Siculo-Calabrian dialects Opolo, and in modern Italian Euplio) was a martyr of Catania during the Great Persecution. He became a saint of the Regno at some time prior to 1284, when he is first recorded as the patron of the town that since perhaps the eleventh century has possessed his supposed relics, today's Trevico (AV) in Campania.
We have both Greek and Latin acta for E. (BHG 629-30e; BHL2728-30d), all forms of which seem ultimately to derive from a common source in which excerpts of the transcripts of two official hearings dealing with E. have been fitted into a brief narrative frame, presumably for liturgical reading. The basic data are that E., who was in a crowd of suspected Christians awaiting processing by a magistrate, shouted aloud that he was a Christian and that he wanted to die. He was also holding in one hand a book containing the Gospels (proscribed by one of Diocletian's edicts). Brought before the magistrate, he read from the Gospels and added that what he was holding was a copy of the law of his god.
E. was then bound over for trial and was sent to jail for the interim. Appearing again before the magistrate on the following 12. August and asked if he still possessed the Gospels, E. responded affirmatively, suggesting that the manner of his present possession was through his having memorized them. Sentenced to beating until he should sacrifice to the gods of the state, E. underwent considerable torment before dying of his injuries. Developed versions of the story make E. a deacon and expatiate on his torture.
E. is entered under today in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology, in the Marble Calendar of Naples, and in the historical martyrologies. His cult, attested in Sicily in the sixth century and at Rome beginning in the seventh, was widespread in southern Europe from the early Middle Ages onward.
E. as depicted an earlier eleventh-century fresco in the monastery church of St. Leontius at Vodoča in today's Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (2d row down, third from left; left click to expand):
http://www.mpc.org.mk/English/sGal.asp?nk=vodo*a&Page=2
Some pages on the church:
http://www.mpc.org.mk/English/mpc/Strumica/vodoca.asp
http://tinyurl.com/2ecozaa
E. as depicted in 1208 in the church of the Theotokos in the Studenica monastery near Kraljevo (Raška dist.) in southern Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/28q78ng
E. at left (St. John the Calybite at right) as depicted in the thirteenth- or early fourteenth-century frescoes of the church of the Evangelisteria in Geraki (Laconia prefecture) on the Peloponnese:
http://tinyurl.com/yhps7ae
E. as depicted ca. 1300 in a fresco, attributed to Manuel Panselinos, in the Protaton Church on Mt. Athos:
http://tinyurl.com/29t4hha
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/39s99ck
E. as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century fresco (1330s) on a partition between the altar area and the diaconicon in the church of the Holy Apostles in the Patriarchate of Peć at Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/ybkgx72
E. as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the nave of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/23u2ene
In the twelfth century, when Catania had been returned to Christian rule, E. was declared one of his city's major patrons along with St. Agatha and St. Leo of Catania. Catania has several churches built over the putative locations of sites mentioned in the acta of St. Agatha. From the thirteenth century onward it also had one over the presumed site of E.'s imprisonment and martyrdom, though initially this church was dedicated to St. Anthony of Egypt (a confraternity naming both saints was instituted in 1510 but the church was not formally dedicated to both until a rebuilding in the seventeenth century). Views of its crypt, constructed in an ancient Christian necropolis, are here (the church above was reduced to rubble by Allied bombing in 1943):
http://sicilyweb.com/foto/192/192-01-02-17-2201.jpg
http://sicilyweb.com/foto/192/192-12-58-47-1868.jpg
http://sicilyweb.com/foto/192/192-01-01-12-2943.jpg
http://sicilyweb.com/foto/192/192-12-59-58-1911.jpg
Here's a view of what's left above ground:
http://www.cataniaperte.com/foto/tempio_s_euplio.htm
On the south Italian mainland E.'s reputed longtime home is Trevico's ex-cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta. The present structure dates from the early fifteenth century and has been much rebuilt. The frescoes in its crypt include a portrait of St. William of Vercelli, the principal patron of Irpinia; significantly, they seem not to include one of E. Brief, Italian-language accounts of the relatively recently restored church, now an Italian national monument, are here:
http://www.irpinia.info/sito/towns/trevico/assunta.htm
http://www.studieupliani.it/home.html
http://www.studieupliani.it/storia.html
http://www.studieupliani.it/museo.html
Further views:
http://tinyurl.com/e5ypm
http://tinyurl.com/l8ctt
E.'s putative relics on display in the church:
http://tinyurl.com/2wchwo3
http://tinyurl.com/3654dut
When these remains were formally examined in 2005 they turned out to be those of three people: a young man, a woman, and a boy.
3) Muiredach of Killala (d. mid-4th or later 6th cent.). According to the _Vita tripartita_ of St. Patrick, M. (also Murtagh _vel sim._) was the protobishop of Killala (county Mayo), having been placed in that see by Patrick himself. Most other indications put him (or, in a solution accepted by Gams but not by others, another of the same name) in the sixth century. His feast today is recorded in the Martyrology of Tallaght (ca. 790) as well as, for what this is worth, in the early seventeenth-century Martyrology of Donegal.
Some views of the round tower in Killala (ninth-, tenth-, or eleventh-century):
http://tinyurl.com/2a5hvyo
http://www.roundtowers.org/killala/index.htm
4) Herculanus of Brescia (d. 6th cent.). H. (in Italian, Ercolano; sometimes Ercoliano or Erculiano) is the traditional eighteenth bishop of Brescia after St. Barnabas the Apostle, having in this ordering of the past succeeded St. Cyprian of Brescia and preceded St. Honorius of Brescia (both of whom are surely at least as well known to most on this list as is H. himself). In 1282 relics believed to be his were discovered in the crypt of the then church of Sant'Andrea -- now San Giovanni (Battista) -- at Maderno in today's Toscolano-Maderno (BS) on the Lago di Garda in Lombardy. In the following year they were displayed for public veneration, in 1486 they were accorded a formal recognition by the bishop of Brescia, and in 1580 they were translated by St. Carlo Borromeo to that church's high altar. They now repose in the town's present parish church of Sant'Andrea (eighteenth-century), into which they were translated in 1825.
Herewith an illustrated, Italian-language page, heavily informed by post-medieval speculation and by legend of uncertain date, on the twelfth-century chiesa di San Giovanni at Toscolano-Maderno, still frequently referred to as that of Sant'Andrea:
http://www.luoghimisteriosi.it/lombardia_maderno.html
Other exterior views:
http://flickr.com/photos/netnicholls/2572035054/
http://tinyurl.com/6ap7k2
http://tinyurl.com/5ezfc6
Details (portal):
http://tinyurl.com/6mn4fw
http://www.panoramio.com/photos/original/5695839.jpg
Interior (in 1905):
http://www.negri.it/toscolano-maderno/02.htm
H.'s putative relics at Maderno were on loan briefly in 1956 and again in 2000 to the chiesa di Sant'Ercolano at Tremosine (BS), a short distance further north on the western side of the Lago di Garda. Here are some views of them from 2000 in their protective wrappings:
http://tinyurl.com/2cmkt23
5) Porcarius of Lérins and companions (d. ca. 739). According to their originally tenth-century Passio (BHL 6899-6901), abbot P. (Lérins' second of this name; in French, Porcaire) and five hundred other monks, many of whom will have come from other places seeking refuge, were slaughtered by Muslims who also destroyed the monastery. A few survivors buried the victims and reported the sad events to the pope. It is now thought that underlying this story is a disaster of some sort that befell the monastery during the Provençal uprisings against Charles Martel in the earlier eighth century. These produced sacks and other outrages, some of which were perpetrated by Muslims called in by the Provençaux.
A memorial chapel to these reputed martyrs is said to have existed on the Île Saint-Honorat since the tenth century; in popular accounts it is sometimes said to be of the eighth century. Now called the chapelle Saint-Porcaire, it was restored in 1775 and again in 1964. Here's an old-postcard view clearly antedating the last restoration:
http://tinyurl.com/2ah68kr
and here's the best view I could find quickly of the chapel in its more-or-less present state:
http://www.encyclopedie-universelle.com/images/Image137.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
(an older post revised and with the addition of Muiredach of Killala)
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